This is Josie Johnson, the Team Blogger and Photographer for Team Johnson 713! Thanks for reading along as I share some news and highlights from our week-long trip, plus some photographs of the team in action.
I am so excited to be back in Guatemala after a long wait. Several team members here today were part of one of the last FIP trips completed before the pandemic shut things down, back in late January 2020. We had hoped to return in January of this year but had to postpone until now, and finally we made it!
This does not mean that Covid-19 is in the rearview mirror for FIP, however. We were greeted at the Guatemala City airport today with a vaccination card check, then when boarding the team bus we were each given new masks and a temperature check. Just a few days ago, Guatemala reinstated a national mask mandate for all activities indoors and outdoors, so we will be wearing those masks quite a lot over the coming week. Fortunately, FIP has had no issues with Covid so far and we hope to keep it that way, for ourselves, the FIP staff and local volunteers, our patients, and the communities we are visiting.
FIP Village Director Felipe Gutierrez described to the team at our orientation today that the pandemic has steamrolled the already-struggling healthcare system in Guatemala. Clinics and hospitals around the nation are fully focused on treating Covid and medical emergencies, but most other ailments are untreated for now. Vaccinations are also lagging behind, having reached only about half the population. As Felipe explained, the need for help is truly great.
The good news is that vaccines are available and are being administered in the country’s rural regions. And FIP is here to provide some of the medical care that patients have been missing, from minor aches and pains to life-altering surgeries. We are all so eager to get started on Monday morning.
But first, we have to complete the last leg of our journey out to the villages. After flying to Guatemala City today, we drove west for several hours to Antigua, then will drive several more hours west to Retalhuleu tomorrow. We will stop at our first clinic site to get set up for Monday, then head to our hotel for further orientation and prep before four straight days of clinic work.
Over the next few days, I will feature stories and remarks from various team members and patients that we meet. Right now, many of us are getting to know each other for the first time—after the January trip was postponed, many of the Team Johnson “regulars” — shout out to all of you, we miss you! — could not make it in July, so we have many new faces on the team with various levels of experience with FIP and medical mission work.
Out of 22 team members, 10 are joining FIP for the first time. Many others have joined 2, 3, 4, or 5 times. Our team leaders, Phil and Linda Johnson, have lost count of how many trips they have completed, but we do know this is their seventeenth year of leading trips with FIP. Cindy Pekow (my mom) has joined them all 17 years! Our ranks include a premed student, three medical students, two residents, and one fellow. We flew in today from all over the country: California, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. One team member currently resides in Spain!
Stay tuned for more, and thanks for your support,
Josie
To support this team and their commitment to our patients visit https://donate.faithinpractice.org/team/373443
